Paul Feig Has New Plans for ‘Ghostbusters’

After Phil Lord and Chris Miller, the writers behind The Lego Movie and Jump Street, turned down an offer from Sony to direct the still-stuck-in-development-hell Ghostbusters 3, Sony now hopes to recruit Paul Feig, the director of Bridesmaids and The Heat, to direct a reboot of the franchise separate from the sequel. If Feig ends up directing and producing the reboot, he may decide to go with an all female cast. It is unknown if Sony is still serious about Ghostbusters 3, and will have two simultaneous series in the franchise, or if the studio is just keeping its options open.

Ghostbusters (1984) starred Bill Murray, Dan Akyroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Ramis as a quartet of paranormal specialists who open a ghost extermination business after they lose their research funds. The film was well-received at the time, had a sequel in 1989, and is still fondly remembered to this day. The current reboot has gone through multiple teams of writers and still has no firm schedule for release.

With the recent success of films like Frozen, Maleficent, Lucy, and The Hunger Games franchise, demands for more variety in women-lead movies have grown. A common defense to excuse predominantly male casts in adaptations and reboots has been that the source material had a predominantly male cast. The decision to change not one but all of the Ghostbusters to women would mark an unprecedented departure from source material by an adaptation and could open the door for more gender or race-bending in future projects.

Feig is currently working with his frequent collaborator Melissa McCarthy on Spy. If he moves forward with a feminized reboot of Ghostbusters, McCarthy could possibly be involved.